Match date: 18 August 2013

After the resignation of Tito Vilanova, due to his fight against cancer, Barcelona were left looking for a coach much later into the summer than they would have hoped for and there were a lot of names being thrown around as to who was going to replace the outgoing manager, but in the end, Tata Martino was appointed.

The former Paraguay and Newell’s Old Boys manager was brought in in late July with a good reception from the Barcelona players and with a reputation of getting his teams to play good football and press, a lot.

His first experience in La Liga came against Levante, who finished 11th during the 2012-2013 season, but, based on this previous display and the loss of many players due to match fixing and financial issues, they might struggle to stay up.

With Martino coming in, there wasn’t too much that changed in terms of shape, as he opted to play a 4-3-3 just as his predecessors had.

Barcelona Attack Down the Left

One of the of the more notable things about Barcelona’s side was that both Alexis and Fabregas were in the starting XI and this, in a way, dictated how the side played.

Fabregas has been used at just about every position in the attacking three and midfield three during his time at Barcelona, having played the second most games in La Liga by an outfield player last season, just behind Messi. Many times, his role was either on the left side of the midfield three, where Iniesta usually plays, or on the left side of the attacking three, which caused positional problems between him and Iniesta. (Read about that here and here.)

Against Levante, however, he played in the former of the two positions mentioned above, and with Pedro on the left side on the attacking three, Fabregas had the freedom to influence the match to a greater extent and did so exceptionally well. Fabregas drifted to the left a good amount during the match and, while Barcelona consistently attack through the left, right, and centre at just about the same regularity, their most threatening attacks came from the right side against Levante.

Pedro chose the proper times to hug the touchline and Fabregas was able to push on toward Levante’s penalty area with a good amount of freedom. Below you’ll see just how much Fabregas drifted to the right to receive the ball compared to the left as well as Pedro’s received passes.

Alexis Sanchez received the ball 33 times compared on the right side, while being on the pitch just 13 minutes less than Pedro. Typically in a 4-3-3, the full backs are the ones that provide the team’s width and while Alves received the ball more than Adriano did, they both looked very good in the attack. Essentially, it was only Alexis, who was a surprise starter from the beginning, who kept Barcelona from being a bit more dangerous from the right side of Barcelona’s attack.

Even when Neymar came on for his La Liga debut, he became involved very quickly, more so than Alexis did during his time on the pitch.

Busquets Drops Deep

One of the problems last year during Tito Vilanova’s time, including Jordi Roura’s time on the sideline, was Barcelona’s exposure at the back when the full backs went up the field. Pep Guardiola had two solutions for this, one was playing Eric Abidal as a horizontal full back, meaning that when Dani Alves went up the field, Abidal would stay mostly parallel to the centre backs. Abidal would find his moments to move up the pitch, but was less adventurous than the likes of Jordi Alba, who played left back the majority of time for Barcelona.

Guardiola’s other solution was to drop Sergio Busquets in between the centre backs during the build up and consolidation phases of Barcelona’s play as the full backs ventured up the field, which allowed the centre backs to spread across the field a bit more and cover the full backs space as they tracked back in transition. Against Levante, Martino adopted this idea.

As you can see above, Busquets is in between Pique (on the ball) and Mascherano, creating something of a 3-4-3, with Adriano and Alves the two outside players in the midfield four. This allows the full backs more time to drop back if Barcelona lose the ball and allows Busquets to step into middle if the opposition attacks down the middle of the field and allows the centre backs to cover the full backs without risk of the middle of the field becoming exposed.

Pressing

Upon Martino’s appointment to Barcelona, Xavi talked about how Tata’s Paraguay was one of the biggest tests that Spain faced during their World Cup run in 2010. He mentioned how well they pressed and how hard they were to break down. Martino’s teams are known for their intense pressing and watching this match, something that Vilanova’s Barcelona side was lacking a bit.

Against the Levante match, however, Barcelona looked back at their best in terms of pressing. They won 8 of their 16 successful tackles (‘X’s in picture below) in Levante’s defensive half of the field, indicating their quality of pressing.

Pressing was essential to Barcelona’s success in the past and in this match, it directly resulted in a goal as Messi nipped possession from a Levante defender, as you can see below.

After the match, Martino talked about Barcelona’s pressing and mentioned how it starts with Messi. “Messi starting the pressing is important for the team. He’s not just putting a bit of pressure, he really wants that ball.”

Conclusion

Tata’s first La Liga match was a great advert for Barcelona. While basing this off of just one match, it seems as though he has them going back to the best days under Guardiola; playing free flowing football and looking a bit better at the back compared to last year.

Perhaps because Tata isn’t quite sure how he wants to utilize Neymar and Messi together, the duo only shared the field for 7 minutes. Iniesta also didn’t feature during those 7 minutes, so it will be interesting going forward to see how Tata manages to fit Messi, Iniesta, Fabregas, and Neymar into the same side, if it does indeed happen.

Levante, as mentioned before, look likely to struggle to stay up. A game against Barcelona usually isn’t a fair way to evaluate a lesser team, but Levante looked very unorganized in defense and only managed to get one shot on goal, which came well outside of Barcelona’s penalty area.